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The petition to support Comfort Women House Resolution 121 is two weeks old and 800 signatures strong. Though it began as a United States petition to House Speaker Pelosi, we have received global support from citizens in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, The Netherlands, The Philippines, Australia, Germany, Italy, France, Singapore, Austria, Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia and Taiwan. If you go online you can read comments written by our international community, expressing concern, outrage, apologies, compassion, and testimonies from survivors of WWII comfort stations. It is turning into an amazing international document of support.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Abe said, “I express my sympathy toward the comfort women and apologize for the situation they found themselves in.” While this sounds like an apology, Prime Minister Abe is not taking responsibility for Japan’s Imperial Army’s action under the direction of the Japanese government. He is not apologizing for these war crimes. His statement falls short of a sincere apology.

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs has decided not to take action on the Comfort Women issue until after Prime Minister Abe’s U.S. visit April 26-27. This gives the petition one month to grow and to truly support House Resolution 121. If it passes, Congress will ask Japan to take full responsibility for the systematic rape and enslavement of the 200,000 women and girls during WWII.

More importantly, the petition itself sends a strong message to surviving Comfort Women. It honors and respects their experiences and demonstrates to them that the global community hears them and believes them. Their experiences are a part of history.

I urge you to send the petition around. Continue to post the link on your blogs, continue to send out email blasts and to announce the petition to your friends, your colleagues and your family members. After all, this is about our women. This about how we choose to treat one another. Let’s aim for 1000 signatures at the very least. Let’s see if we can find 200,000 signatures for each of the women who suffered during WWII.

I thank you for signing and spreading the word. To sign the petition go directly to http://www.gopetition.com/online/11466.html.

Sincerely,

M. Evelina Galang

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Maria Rosa Henson, or Lola Rosa, was the first Filipina Comfort Woman of WWII to come forward publicly on September 12, 1992. Because of Lola Rosa, many other Filipinas who had been living with this secret for over 50 years found the courage to come forward and finally speak their truth, finally ask for their apology, finally free themselves from the stories.

Here is an excerpt from her book, COMFORT WOMAN: Slave of Destiny (Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 1996). This passage occurs in 1943. She's 16 years old and she has just been abducted and placed into a garrison, a former town hospital close to Magalang, Pampanga near Manila.

Without warning, a Japanese soldier entered my room and pointed his bayonet at my chest. I thought he was going to kill me, but he used his bayonet to slash my dress and tear it open. I was too frightened to scream. And then he raped me. When he was done, other soldiers came into my room and they took turns raping me.

The sun streams in through the wall-sized window, casting afternoon light on our family room. Outside the trees sway vibrant and green, shade a small figure of Mama Mary. She welcomes me too with arms stretched and hands waiting. Inside, noise percolates from every room of the house. I am home. From my suitcase I pull a salmon colored tapestry. When you first glance at it, the greens, blues and reds flash a beautiful montage of color. The folds unwind and reveal the fine embroidery.

I’m telling my mother and sister-in-law that when Lola Remedios learned I was coming, she began working on this piece as gift to me. It took her all six months to get this far in the tapestry. Every piece – every letter and image has been cut from other fabrics and painstakingly hand-sewn into the cloth. Except for the missing D where she has sewn, “(D)ecember 20, 1942, Dito Ako Nahuli Sa Lugar ng Baryo Esperanza,” it’s all there – the Dagitan River, green…

Lola Precsilla Bartonico was born on January 6, 1926 on the island of Leyte, Philippines. Here is an excerpt from Lola Prescilla’s testimony to the Japanese government:

One day in the late months of 1943 when I was about 17 years old, the Japanese soldiers captured us as we were hiding in one of the air raid shelters. We were only two women in that group who were all my relatives. They started raping my cousin while the other soldiers tied up the men. I was about 17 years old then. Then they tied me and one soldier raped me. I wanted to resist but I was too afraid to for fear of getting killed. After, they brought us to the town of Burauen and I was brought to the elementary school which they converted into garrison. We arrive in there late afternoon. I saw around 15 women who were also raped like what they did to me. After that, I was brought to the Home Economics Building and saw two women inside.

Then my suffering started at the hands of the Japanese soldiers. We were bein…